Irish woman allegedly held captive for 30 years in Maoist sect is revealed as
daughter of Bletchley Park codebreaker, John Herivel

An Irish woman allegedly held as a slave by a Maoist sect in south London is the daughter of one of the Bletchley Park code breakers who helped ensure the Allied victory in the Second World War, the Telegraph can reveal.

Josephine Herivel, 59, is the daughter of mathematician, John Herivel, who was a key figure in the team who cracked the German Enigma ciphers in 1940.

Brought up with her two sisters, Mary and Susan in Belfast, Northern Ireland, she joined Aruvindan Balakrishnan’s extremist collective in the 1970s after moving to London to study, turning her back on her family.

When her father died in 2011 obituaries only made mention of his two other daughters, who now live in London and refused to comment on the development.

John Herivel at a Bletchley Park reunion in 2010 (HEATHCLIFF O'MALLEY FOR THE TELEGRAPH)

A friend of the family said they had tried to make contact with Miss Herivel for years, but without success.

She was educated at the prestigious Belfast Methodist College, and was a talented musician before moving to London, where she became involved in the far left.

One of the core figures in Mr Balakrishnan’s tight-knit circle of loyalists, Miss Herivel was prosecuted in 1978 after police raided the group’s south London bookshop and headquarters.

Appearing in court alongside five fellow cult members, she displayed the extent to which she had fallen under the spell of its charismatic leader, by refusing to recognise the court and denouncing the judge as a “Fascist lackey”.

Aruvindan Balakrishnan with who is believed to be Josephine behind him in 1997 (ITV NEWS)

Miss Herivel was also with the sect when one of its members, Sian Davies, 44, died in mysterious circumstances in 1997.

Miss Davies died in hospital, seven months after falling from a bathroom window at a house in south London where Mr Balakrishnan, his wife Chanda and supporters were living.

At the subsequent inquest the coroner criticised the other women living there after learning that they had failed to inform Miss Davies’ family of the accident, telling them instead she was on holiday in India.

When journalists later approached Miss Herivel at the house to inquire what had happened she accused them of being parts of the “Fascist state” and remaining fiercely loyal to her leader, refused to discuss Miss Davies’ death or the arrangements inside the sect.

Mr Herivel, was recruited to Bletchley Park from Cambridge University in 1940, and after being trained by Alan Turing worked in the now legendary Hut 6.

Mr Herivel invented an ingenious method to crack codes which became known as the Herivel Tip or herivelismus

He was responsible for coming up with an ingenious method to crack codes which became known as the Herivel Tip or herivelismus.

Assuming that the German code operators of his own age might take shortcuts through official procedures to make their lives easier, Mr Herivel came up with a system that allowed the codebreakers to crack the crucial Red cipher.

After the war he worked as a teacher, but eventually returned to his native Northern Ireland, with wife Elizabeth, who also worked at Bletchley Park.

It was in Belfast where his three daughters were brought up and where he took up a post at the city’s Queen’s University.

All three daughters excelled at school and Susan went on to become a respected artist, while Mary works in the property industry.

But Josephine’s obsession with left wing politics meant she rejected her upbringing in favour of joining Mr Balakrishnan’s cult like organisation, The Workers’ Institute of Marxism Leninism Mao Zedong Thought.

It is thought Miss Herivel lived with the group for more than 30-years before last month contacting the Freedom Charity and reporting that she and two other women were being held against their will.

All three were eventually freed from the flat in Brixton south London where she had been living for the past five years and taken into the care of the police and specially trained charity workers.

Initially at the women’s request the police did not take any action against the couple alleged to have held them against their will.

But last week Mr Balakrishnan and his wife Chanda were arrested on suspicion of slavery related offences. They have been bailed to a date in January.